WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR NOVEL IS COMING OUT IN T MINUS THREE DAYS.

You visit the gynecologist because it's the least scary thing on your to-do list.

While being examined with a speculum, you casually invite doctor you've never met before to come to your book launch event. Achievement unlocked.

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You crawl into the fetal position in embarrassment after sending an email to your entire mailing list asking them to please buy your new book.

You get a bunch of emails from readers who said they wondered what had happened to you in the six years since your last book came out. (You get distinct impression that some had thought you died.) You also get a warning from Mail Chimp that you've had an exceedingly high number of people report your email as spam.

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You check Amazon rankings.

And then promise yourself you will not look at Amazon again for at least 24 hour to 48 hours. You last approximately 13 1/2 minutes.

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Your children ask to be fed, but you tell them "don't you know I have a book coming out in T MINUS THREE DAYS? Make something yourself."

They are three and six, so this happens.

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Your husband takes the kids out "to give you some time to yourself."

Translation: You are a crazy person who should not be around impressionable young minds right now. Also, he is not wrong.

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You look around for funny things to take pictures of to break up the constant self-promo on your Instagram feed.

You resort to Powerpuffing yourself. This may be bottom.

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Because your book is called TELL ME THREE THINGS, you decide it will be clever to list everything you do on social media in threes.

1. This is not clever. 2. It may, in fact, be the opposite of clever. 3. And also annoying.

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You check Amazon rankings.

You notice a little flag that says "#1 New Release" and that there is a new five star review! You do a happy dance, but then realize that once the book is out more reviews will come and some of them won't be five stars, or worse maybe people won't review it at all, and then you are back in the fetal position, rocking.

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You buy a travel steamer for book tour.

You have never used an iron in your life.

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You consider putting a pink stripe in your hair because now you write for teenagers and you're getting older and maybe a pink stripe will distract from the fact that you are twice their age.

When you ask your husband what he thinks, he laughs even harder than the time you explained to his mother about the definition of "camel toe." You do not get pink stripe. Instead you eat a cupcake, even though you've quit sugar and gluten to fit into new skinny jeans for book tour.

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Cupcakes normalize your sugar levels and you remember that this has been your lifelong dream.

You are suddenly filled with pure gratitude and wonder that you have written a book that will, in T MINUS THREE DAYS, be in stores and that people might actually buy it and read words that were once only in your own head and you realize that this is a miraculous and wonderful and magical thing, getting to live out, what only 10 years ago, was your wildest dream. So you eat another cupcake. This time in celebration.